Alex couldn't answer with Beth staring at her. "Nothing." She reached over to Beth's plate and snagged a handful of fries. To Cam, privately she announced, We have so got to talk!
While Alex sucked down the filched fries like strands of spaghetti, Cam felt a headache coming on. It was the one she always got when the visions started. Closing her eyes, she saw, in a series of lightning flashes, Cade Richman's horrified face, the speeding red convertible, an oxygen tent set up in a hospital room, and Madison Knudnick grinning impishly. Whoa, girl. Cam's eyes flew open. You are throwing way too much at me at once.
"What do you mean?" Alex asked.
"Cam's right. You don't look all that well," Beth answered. Pushing back from the table, she gathered up the shopping bags mobbed at her feet. "We'd better boogie. My mother's probably waiting for us—"
Cam started to get up. Alex stopped her. "I told Mom we'd be taking the bus," Alex said.
"Mom?" Cam was flummoxed. "Excuse me?"
Hello. I was trying to sound normal, her sister informed her.
How are you spelling that, D-O-R-K?
Actually, yes, Alex sniped back.
Beth shrugged. "Suit yourself, Armani. Text you later."
They were barely on the bus when Alex began to unload on Cam. "Okay, first of all, you were right, right, right. Eddie was telling the truth. About not robbing Cade's house, anyway. Don't ask me how, but Cade knows that Eddie didn't do it—"
"You read him!" Cam squealed, delighted.
"It wasn't easy. Until he started fooling with my necklace and then, open sesame noodles, I knew what he was thinking. And one of the things was that red convertible you saw. It's a—"
"BMW," Cam said. "Of course."
"It's his sister's car. Nelly Nutso... only her name's Karen. And Cami, the little boy. She did hit him, or whoever was driving that car did. And he's not dead!"
"Is he the one who's in the oxygen tent, in the hospital room?
"He's definitely in a hospital. But I don't know which one or where. I don't even know where the accident happened. Do you?"
Cam shook her head. "Dark road, that's all I saw. Dark road, the red blur, top down, headlights, a kid running—"
"And I heard the laughing," Alex added. "Coming from the car. And then the screams and the... the sound, the terrible sound, when they hit... the boy, I guess. But why would a little kid be running across a dark road? Was he alone? You didn't see his mom or anyone with him? I mean, maybe if you try—"
"Oh, no," Cam said forcefully. "Give me a break. I don't want to go back there now. My head's just starting to feel better."
"Well, what are we going to do? I mean, I didn't see any of it. The hospital room, Cami. Can you zone in on, you know, like a chart or something? Those plastic bracelets they wear? If we just had the kid's name, then we could check out hospitals until we find him."
"And when we do? I know what you're thinking—that we could save him, cure him, fix his bones or brain or whatever is wrong with him. But this is a person, a child, a real human being, Alex. He's not—"
"I know, I know." They had fixed things before. Things, not people. Cam using her phenomenal sun power and Alex the amazing hearing that told her what was happening in the dark. Together, they'd bent iron to their will. But could they mend a broken boy the same way?
Alex turned her back, looked out the bus window—as if that would hide her doubts from Cam. They said nothing for a time. Then, when they were almost at their stop, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Its touch sent an icy shiver through her.
"Karsh did say we were born healers—"
Alex twisted around and stared at her look-alike. Cam's eyes were unfocused, barely open. She was squinting in pain. "And that we're supposed to help people," she said, her voice shaking.
"You did it." Alex wrapped her arms around her shivering sister. "You went back. You found him."
"Not really." Cam shook her head. "I found his name. N. Tung, I think. I don't know which hospital. But the room... The beds are all in a circle with partitions but no doors. The nursing station is in the middle of the room. I saw 'ICU' and a girl with a cart... She was wearing this pink apron and talking to a nurse."
"A cart?" Alex asked.
"You know, with juice, magazines—"
"Stuff that candy stripers give out?"
"The apron!" Cam remembered. "That's what 'Manda wore last year when she volunteered at Mount Bay Medical!"
"And ICU stands for Intensive Care Unit. He must be in bad shape," Alex said dully, remembering that her mother—no, Sara, she reminded herself, feeling tears welling, blurring her sight. Sara had died in a long, crowded ward down the hall from the brightly lit, carefully monitored Intensive Care Unit.
Alex realized that she was still hugging Cam. Feeling dumb, she let go, but her sister clung to her.
"Als," Cam whispered. "What are we supposed to do? I don't know anything about healing—"
"He said herbs," Alex recalled. Closing her eyes, she rested her chin on Cam's head, on a cushion of clean, thick auburn hair. Get to know your herbs and flowers, Doc had told her back in Crow Creek—Doc, whose real name was Karsh. Study your crystals and stones. You've already got a flair for incantation—
But which herbs and flowers, crystals and stones, which incantations or spells would they need to help a very sick little boy?
"The only herbs I know anything about are herbal bath foams and shower gels," Cam confessed. The bus lurched to a stop. "O.M.G., this is us." She jumped up, banging Alex's chin. Then, grabbing her hand and hauling her to her feet, Cam dragged her sister off the bus.
Ten minutes later they were racing up the stairs to their room, when Emily called, "Alex, that boy phoned. Cade Richman. He's been calling every ten minutes for the last half hour. He left his number."
"I don't want to talk to him," Alex replied, not even stopping.
"Cade called and you're not interested?" Cam asked when they were in their room.
"I'm annoyed at him," Alex decided. "He knows Eddie didn't steal money from his house. I heard him thinking that Eddie didn't do it. So why didn't he tell the police that, instead of getting his dad to pay Eddie's bail? I mean, that's pretty lame."
"Cade's dad is the one who bailed Eddie out?"
"Looks that way. I mean, Cade wouldn't have the cash. However bustable Eddie is, if he didn't rob Cade's place, he doesn't deserve to go to jail for it—"
"I've got it," Cam shouted, digging in her knapsack for her cell phone. " 'Manda."
" 'Manda what?" Alex asked, miffed at the quick convo switch.
"She's into all this alterna-stuff—especially herbs, right?"
"But she's not a witch," Alex reminded her.
"Do you have a better idea? Got Karsh's digits? Or Ileana's? I'd love to call them but, duh, I don't think they're listed."
The phone rang the minute Cam laid hands on it. "Amanda?" she asked.
"Whoops, another rank mojo failure," Bree laughed. "But you get partial points. She's here. We're at Sukari's. Scoop time, Cam-era. Someone from school broke Eddie out of juvie!"
"Saw him. Talked to him. Galleria. Today," Cam announced. "Put 'Manda on, please."
Alex rolled her eyes and plopped down on her bed. Then she jumped back up again. The crystal Karsh had shown her after Sara's funeral... when he'd said that Alex would make an excellent healer... where was it? Had she seen it in her duffel bag?
While Cam grilled Amanda, Alex searched the beat-up canvas carrier Karsh had packed for her. And found the faceted pink gemstone.
She drew it out, feeling it grow warm in her hand. It reminded her of that terrible day, the funeral, the wrenching loss of Sara... Tenderly, Alex rubbed the heated crystal with her thumb. And thought suddenly of violets—Sara's flower.
Violets, mint, chamomile, she heard. Karsh's raspy voice whispered the names of the medicinal plants. Rosemary for contentment. Sage, of course. It gets its name from the Latin word for healing. Thyme, to inspire courage.
The voice changed abruptly. Oh, for goodness' sake! The edgy, crooning complaint could only be Ileana's. Get your sister off the phone. Now. She knows where the herbs grow.
"What about the boy?" Alex asked, revolving slowly, looking around the room, checking the ceiling. "Where is he?"
Do I look like OnStar? Ileana sounded indignant. Use a little ingenuity. Let your fingers do the walking. Try the telephone book.
"Excuse me. What are you doing?" Cam put her phone on pause. She was staring at Alex, alarmed.
"Hang up," Alex told her. "Now!" She dived for the Yellow Pages stashed under Cam's night table and started riffling through the book, looking for hospitals.
Cam's gray eyes blazed rebelliously. But she said, "Thanks, 'Manda. I think I've got it all. BBGF.
"BBGF?" Alex didn't look up from the phone book.
"Bye-Bye Girl Friend," Cam said coldly. "Amanda recommends chamomile, mint, and thyme."
Alex hid her astonishment. "Three out of six. Not bad," she said evenly. "Did she tell you where to get them?"
"I don't need Amanda to tell me," Cam declared. "I know where to go."
Mariner's Park was at its most peaceful in late afternoon. Though it was still light out, by five o'clock the families who used the playground and sailboat pond had gone home—as had the checkers and chess players and the bystanders who commented on their every move. The elderly had evacuated their benches and the teens who gathered after dinner had not yet assembled.
Alex and Cam walked along the pebbled path in silence for a time. They had checked the three hospitals listed in the phone book. One of them, Mount Bay Medical—the hospital where Amanda had been a candy striper for a summer—had a patient named N. Tung. Nguyen Thanh Tung, a little Vietnamese boy. "We call him Nelson," the ICU nurse had told them. "He doesn't know that, of course. Cutest little fella you ever saw, but he's still in a coma. I'm going to miss him."
Cam had gulped, thinking the nurse meant Nguyen was going to die—until the woman added, "They're moving him to a private room as soon as one becomes available."
"Here it is," Cam said, breaking the silence. They turned onto a dirt trail that wound through trees and brambles up to the park's highest point, a hidden, gently sloping field that offered an awesome view of the harbor below. At the center of that secluded meadow was a thick, weathered elm tree.
In that hidden place, under that ancient tree, Cam had often found solitude and serenity. The sweet perfume of thyme, which carpeted the meadow, pleased her senses, as did the tufts of wild mint and chamomile and violets nestled among the stones and pungent, prickly sprigs of rosemary... The little field was rampant with soothing herbs and wildflowers, which, up until today, Cam had simply thought of as pleasant plants.
Whether listening to music or writing in her journal or just staring up at the clouds or out at the water, it was one of the few places in Marble Bay where Cam was perfectly content alone. She'd shared her private haven with only one other person—Alex.
They trudged out into the open now to gather the herbs they needed.
What they found was an intruder.
Cam couldn't believe her eyes. But even before she zoned in on the trespasser, she recognized the face, half-hidden behind stringy brown hair, and the energetic, pint-sized body. The little gnome was sitting in the grass, leaning back against a tree—Cam's tree, the big old elm she loved
Madison Knudnick seemed almost as stunned to see them as they were to see her. For the first time, she wasn't lively, jumping around, shrieking in that nasal whine of hers. She was, in fact, brooding. Send a man to do a child's job, Alex heard her say gloomily, before Madison spotted them and whatever else the girl was thinking got lost in static again.
Madison scrambled to her feet. "Wow, is this, like, too weird for words? I didn't know anybody else knew about this place. But, well, of course you two would. Duh." She smacked her forehead. "Like how could you not, right? Still, I've gotta say you, like, totally freaked me out, stepping out of the woods like that."
Cam believed her. Madison looked radically stressed. Honestly surprised. And, Cam realized, "honestly anything" was not a phrase she'd ordinarily use to describe the manic mouse-ette.
But Alex wasn't convinced. "How did you know we were going to be here?" she demanded.
"Hello," Madison sang. "Anyone home? I just told you, Alexandra, you guys scared me to pieces. I had no idea you'd be here—"
"And by, 'of course we'd know about this place,' you meant?" Alex probed.
"Well, everyone knows this is a... a... you know, like, historic area—"
"I've lived in Marble Bay all my life," Cam informed the wheedling girl, "and no one ever mentioned that to me."
"Oooo, my mistake, I guess. Totally you'd know better than me. I must have gotten it all confused with, like, some other place."
"Some other place that's famous for what?" Cam pressed.
"O.M.G., I am so late!" Madison looked at the giant watch that looped loosely around her little wrist and started backing away. "Supper time. Gotta run. See you guys at school."
They stared at her, a hundred questions racing through their minds, as she skittered away, disappearing like a scrabbling animal through the brambles.
Chapter 16 – The Decision
Karsh stopped to smell the wild mint. It grew in knee-high clusters behind Ileana's cottage. He leaned for support against the trellis he'd built for her more than a dozen years ago, when she'd become guardian of the twins. The youngest guardian in Coventry's history. At his insistence.
Rhianna, Grivveniss, Karkum, Shiva, and old Cho, who'd since passed on, had thought he was mad to suggest such a thing. Perhaps he was, Karsh allowed. Mad with grief over what had happened to Aron. And to Miranda.
He had assured the Unity Council, of which he was then a senior member—was it only two years ago that he had retired from the ruling body? Ah, well. He had promised them that Ileana would rise to the occasion, though she was young, only a year older than the twins were about to become, Karsh realized.
Soon, very soon—next week, in fact—they would celebrate their fifteenth birthdays. Proof that though he might have been addled with sorrow when he appointed Ileana their guardian, he had not been wrong. They had survived, hadn't they? Survived and thrived. And would soon prepare for their initiation into the clan.
Karsh sighed and righted himself. "Ileana?" he called. "Are you in the garden?"
"Karsh, Karsh, I did it! I imitated your voice perfectly," she answered happily. "Not as perfectly as if I'd transmutated, but they thought it was you. At least Artemis did—until my impatience gave me away. She's the one I spoke to. Listen."
Through the bayberry hedge, he saw her sandaled feet resting on the table she'd had shipped form the mainland. Ileana had ordered the wrought-iron "garden set" from a Web site called Hollywood Chic—and when Karsh had balked at the price, she'd lectured him on stylishness and elegance. This was, of course, shortly after her trip to Los Angeles. Where it was not just "stylishness" she'd fallen for, but Brice Stanley, the handsome warlock who'd become a movie star.
Ileana set down her laptop, frightening Boris, who was on the table, lazing in the sun. He bounded away as she hopped up from her stylish wrought-iron chair and hurried to meet Karsh. "Violets, mint, chamomile," Ileana chanted in a strange, choked voice. "Sage, named for the Latin word for healing. Thyme, to inspire courage."
"Is that what I sound like?" Karsh asked, amused.
"Exactly," Ileana assured him.
"Well, I'm impressed—"
"With my impersonation?"
"That you remember your lessons on medicinal herbs. But you might have been more helpful to them—"
"Why? You've always believed in letting me learn through doing. They may be of noble blood but even princesses can profit from practice. For instance, transmutation—"
Weary, Karsh cut her off. "Truly, Ileana, I'm very impressed with your knowledge of—"
"Medicinal herbs,
healing plants! Pooh!" Her gray eyes sparked angrily. "I only helped them to perfect my morphing, to show you that I am ready. I want to transmutate like a tracker. Like you! I don't care what she thinks. I want to do it."
Karsh hobbled through the archway in the hedge. And, unexpectedly, Ileana took his arm and helped him to one of her mail-order chairs. "By she, I assume you mean Lady Rhianna?" he said, easing himself onto the cold metal.
Ileana glanced around her wooded yard then up at the sky to be sure no surprises would sail into view. "Lady Potato," she whispered, though no one was in sight, "can get baked for all I care. With melted cheese and chives! The girls—my girls," she emphasized," are in trouble. "Thantos has sent someone to snare them. Or maybe he himself has transmutated! It's such an easy thing for a tracker to do. Maybe Thantos didn't send someone else. Maybe he has shape-shifted into the messenger."
T*Witches: Building a Mystery Page 10
